Mandelbrot worked on the kinds of mathematical problems that are beyond the comprehension of most people, but that doesn't mean his work didn't impact people in a positive way. His work has had a profound impact on other fields, including art, fluid dynamics, medicine, kinematics, seismology, and music.

It seems to me that the majority of people were unaware that a giant walked among us, except perhaps for Jonathan Coulton who wrote a song about the Mandelbrot set. Fortunately, the father of fractal geometry left the beauty of his fractals to remind us that he was here.